civil war enters its twenty second month in syria the u.s. now says it will intervene if assad uses chemical weapons but does this remind you of iraq all of two thousand and three we'll take a look at the similarities in these cases and ask if intervention is inevitable. susan rice is still being dragged through the mud for her inaccurate statements on the benghazi attack all of this in the quest for the next secretary of state but given her history and more importantly her investment there's more to susan rice than meets the eye had on our t.v. sets the u.n. ambassador and waves the mainstream media is not. and backed by congressional demand but against white house objections stricter sanctions on iran as part of the

revamped n.d.a. coming up we'll look at what these new measures entailed and whether they really are nonviolent. it's monday december third eight pm in washington d.c. i'm christine and you're watching our t.v. starting off this hour with the latest news out of syria there are reports that syrian president bashar al assad might be preparing to use chemical weapons in his war torn country but the united states and its western allies have warned the syrian government that assad will be quote held accountable if his forces use these weapons against the rebels rebels fighting his government this is also the story being told to the american people that syria's stockpile of chemical weapons is dangerous and could be deadly sound familiar well maybe it's because you've heard similar talk only a decade ago in the lead up to the war with iraq. danger to our country is grave.

the danger to our country is growing. the iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons weapons of mass destruction weapons of mass destruction weapons of mass destruction we don't know where they are but the point is there was every reason to believe that they were there at the time we're going to find out massive evidence of weapons of mass destruction every statement i make today is backed up by sources solid sources these are not assertions we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence well on questioning those facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence while that's regarded today as one of the biggest media fails in history and now there's a possibility we're seeing something similar with syria that this alleged movement of chemical weapons could mean the west can and should get involved this was made abundantly clear today at the latest news came out regarding the turmoil in the

region appears the syrian government is preparing its biological and chemical weapons that hillary clinton gave syria a warning this morning about the use of chemical weapons the possible use of chemical weapons by the syrian regime the syrian government is losing its grip on damascus and that may be part of the reason why they are preparing their chemical weapons again i show you losing a parent leaves from weapon. sound does the increased attention to syria's chemical weapons mean that the west is readying itself for an invasion and building an arsenal of justification well we can't say for sure one thing however is clear if history serves as an indicator we might be sings and military action sooner than later. a lot of the mainstream media cycles during the last couple weeks were mired in chatter about u.n. ambassador susan rice and the possibility she might be considered to take over as secretary of state once hillary clinton leaves her post and most of what you

probably heard sounded something like this we are significantly troubled by many of the answers that we got and some that we didn't get out of line and more disturbed now than i was before we will not allow a brilliant public servant record to be mugged to cut off her or her consideration to become secretary of state the republicans are making a big mistake the first thing they do after the election is start attacking african-american woman without any cause by the way this is somebody had nothing to do with big guys he she was given cia information the cia told her here's what i think it's appropriate to say of course it's only racism when it's directed toward a a liberal or a democrat it's never racism toward a republican look if this is can the lisa rice and not susan rice valerie be on the other side of this camera basically suggesting that she deserves either resign or she did something wrong well as you can imagine the obama administration was

a little annoyed about so much attention being paid to ambassador rice i was out last tuesday's press briefing at the white house and question after question was about susan rice and who knew what when about benghazi. here was one of the white house spokesman jay carney's responses to that barrage of questions he got going to say that this is again what is the point of the focus on this it could have been me it could have been an embezzler reisman i took questions on this too and we all relied on. information from the intelligence community the focus on a sunday show appearances entirely misplaced and it represents less interest i think in what happened in benghazi then in the political dynamics in washington. and you know i he's right the media is probably focused on the wrong thing here if they want to focus on susan rice that's fine but the overkill of her allegedly misleading the american people based on vague information she may have gotten is

not the most significant thing here if they want to focus on the potential of her becoming secretary of state and the issues stemming from that let's look at who susan rice is what decision she's made here's some food for thought susan rice is worth between twenty three and forty three million dollars making her the wealthiest member of the executive branch according to the center for responsive politics she has investments in companies like trans canada corp suncor and imperial oil ltd and that is just the beginning everything you see highlighted in yellow here is something that she has a stake in so when you take a closer look millions of dollars in assets in these canadian utility companies and banks which make up a third of her total investments now let's connect the dots here if confirmed by the senate asked secretary of state one of the first items on rice's agenda would be to weigh and eventually make a decision about the keystone pipeline this is just the beginning of some major concerns about rice for more i was joined by michael brooks producer at the

majority report i started off by asking him whether or not susan rice should be considered a good candidate for secretary of state based on her so-called misspeak about benghazi or her financial holdings and relevant actions. well definitely her financial holdings in trance canada and you know unfortunately this is part of a pattern with the state department and this issue in general you know you had lobbyists who were senior officials on hillary clinton's campaign lobbying her on the pipeline fortunately you know the pipeline was delayed by the administration i think due to the effort of activists on the ground. you know and i think if we look at climate change as the security issue it really is you could in some ways see you know races holdings in these companies as analogous to the surgeon general or you know having holdings and tobacco companies it doesn't make a lot of sense it's something she should address. and it's not just on these

investments i know back in one thousand nine hundred four season rice was working for the clinton administration as a junior official often national security council and how to shape u.s. policy toward central africa during and after the wanding genocide as want to invaded neighboring countries to find hutus talk a little bit about some of the criticisms of susan rice you know in that well i think that invested a race in this regard is really just reflective of a lot of even president clinton himself and a lot of figures from that in ministration because basically they were responsive to genocide you know took place in real time it was clear what was happening due to other concerns about not wanting to get bogged down in africa due to the marines being killed in mogadishu the year before in one thousand nine hundred three and they didn't want to intervene and this really horrific event happened and now the

tendency coming out of that has been on the opposite extreme which has been to look the other way as the rwandan government under paul kagame a has a questionable domestic record of those some real significant domestic successes but also really plays kind of warlord and rebel part of politics across central africa so i think you know the baster rice is she kind of just embodies a lot of these tendencies of the clinton administration officials who were involved in both sides of both letting what happened in rwanda happen and then probably going too far in the other extreme of being too forgiving of of the rwandan government it's so interesting to me because the position of secretary of state is so important in terms of representing this country on an international scale so why are we not hearing in the mainstream media about decisions like this decisions and policy shaping ideas about africa this. this is not what we're hearing. well

because you know these are more complex topics they're a little bit they're not in the news cycle though obviously there's a lot happening in congo right now that's relevant to this discussion like you point out but benghazi is saturday or sunday morning you know argument topic right now and it's partisan and it's easy to fit into soundbites and people are scoring points and it's easy to cover and easy to have people to come on and or you with each other about it's not to say that what happened in benghazi isn't really important and worthy of of talking about but her role in it was very limited you know she read some talking points that were prepared for her and as you say it's really not in any way central to evaluating her record i think it's interesting what you said michel that it's a little more complicated to talk about the issues in africa to talk about. you know what i think that investments and holdings in these major companies that

you're going to have a role in making decisions on i mean this is you know standard washington you know sports politics why not why are people are talking about that well because again from a partisan lens you know be interesting to watch republicans come out and say you know we need to approve this pipeline immediately but it's a major problem that she might potentially have a conflict of interest here so a lot of these things you know are driven just in the sort of partisan framework. you know real issues are kind of obscured by it so i don't think that there's a political incentive for a lot of people to bring her holdings because democrats are going to want to be defending her and republicans are really strongly strongly supportive of the pipeline i think that's such an interesting point that because her you know conflict of interest has to do with an issue that you know republicans would actually side with her on something they would agree on they're deciding not to bring it up but what do you think i mean where when weighing up. attentional

secretary of state i mean what qualities should be locked in and how much you know significant should they this be given i know that you know in the presidential election we were in conversation. every single hour of every single day it was about mitt romney's taxes a lot of people are saying you know what i don't care how much money he makes and that's irrelevant what do you think are the you know most important points that the american people should be thinking about and that the american media should be talking about when it comes to whoever the next secretary of state is well i mean there's definitely some basic questions of someone's you know intellect their capacity i think she definitely meets those marks you know she's obviously a very talented person she's a very accomplished person there's been areas where she's been right about like the invasion of iraq she was opposed to it from the beginning and then you know the other questions that are really central that i want to see her pressed on are rwanda her whole policy towards africa that's really where she launched her career

from as an africa specialist and i would say with regard to the holdings in trans canada and other energy companies she needs to let go of them if she wants to be a credible candidate i think that that's a totally black or white thing and i hope you know you'll keep pushing on it and other people keep pushing it because that's very clear there's not much ambiguity there and that was michael brooks producer of the majority report. well we're starting to get a clearer picture painted for us of the future of the spy culture in the u.s. and the extent to which it's grown over the last ten years an article over the weekend in the washington post revealed that the pentagon is creating an intelligence agency of its own that could rival the cia in both size and scope the defense intelligence agency is aiming to have as many as one thousand six hundred collectors they're called in positions around the world and according to the agency's director lieutenant general michael flynn this is a major adjustment for national security well it also raises some major questions

about the size of our intelligence force in this country considering there are sixteen agencies that deal with intelligence matters to talk more about this i am joined by tony shaffer director for external communications at the center for advanced defense studies hey there tony what do you make of this i mean why not just use one of the agencies already in place. well the honest answer is anybody read my book we talk about this defense intelligence agency has had the capability sense nine hundred ninety five a century one to go back and ironically find an interview done by some by. missed are when she was with c.n.n. with general clapper who was then director of the back in one thousand nine hundred five talked about the very same set of issues believe it or not and the whole thing is is that this is this more of an expansion of existing capabilities and something new defense intelligence agency in the one hundred ninety five reorganization absorb something called g.

tip humint that's general intelligence fund human which basically it was a consolidation so while this is not new this this the idea of going to six hundred collectors is significant and does indicate that there's a serious effort to expand let me. comment on that i think it's insane that they're saying anything publicly about this this is truly something that should only be talked about in a classified level so the fact that this hit the the new york times is as bad as you know the washington post i mean one of the criticisms out and perhaps someone on the inside felt the same but is that this program that because the d.i.'s falls under the military umbrella and there are different you know congressional notification requirements than the cia so much of what could be done could be done without oversight i mean what do you think about these criticisms. that's valid and let me be very clear this is most of your audience knows i testified to something called able danger which is a pretty nine eleven effort to go after al qaida most your audience managed and i

testified for the house armed services committee not the intelligence committees because the operation was focused on military operations which is title ten title ten are those capabilities those laws which govern military operations and that is separate and distinct from intelligence collection intelligence lection has to do with something called title fifty which is essentially those body of laws which allow for cia. to conduct this much and it's going to covert operations as well as until it's collection operations and if there were adequate anything done to collect intelligence should be done under title fifty and under specific congressional oversight with that said there is still oversight of title ten but it's done by different committees one of the things we're finding for example about dodgy is that there's a lot of different issues but no one committee you can go to because you have to for fares you have the intelligence the have you have the armed services and that's part of the problem here is that there may be a perception that there may be an attempt to bypass certain oversight by going in and building this with the department of defense versus within the cia yet

certainly when we saw general petraeus here on the hill a couple weeks ago those hearings were closed doors but it was he was testifying before several different here in the days so it does seem like you know there are some different channels here let me ask you about another criticism though by a whole lot of people on capitol hill and that is that this new arrangement and like you said the da is not new but it is a vast expansion that this new arrangement is too generous to the cia i mean the cia according to this article at least will get to sort of approve or deny these missions and will get to use the i am members as support. huge part of friction i thought this myself inside yes this is been something that goes back well before ninety five this basically the director of cia is also called the director of central intelligence the d.c.i. and i was just meeting with jim woolsey the night former director of central intelligence and jim worked under president clinton as director of central intelligence last director of cia so it's

a dual hand sort of thing and because there is a need to be conflict generally speaking every operation must be coordinated within the director of central intelligence that is basically a common sense thing to do with that said there is inherently friction between cia and dia and as the article stipulates and i can you know is this is we talk about this but my book operation dark heart everybody to include d.o.d. case officer trained by cia with that said the similarity ends there the d.o.t. missions are completely different often cia will will take things from vi if they like it one of the noble things about able danger which was the pre nine eleven effort is that cia did things to undermine the special operations command efforts to go after bin lot that was something that i testified to so with that said there's always friction and i don't see it getting any better with the current set of laws or with this expansion because obviously there's going to be issues of who's in charge well that's what i was going to ask you this friction between the d.a. and the cia as we know for years has been there's been friction between the cia and

the i.b.i. on matters so i mean you think that this is going to sort of make matters worse by having yet another agency sort of not quite but sort of it competing with the cia. well competition is a tough term d.o.d. has his own missions and those do often get in get in conflict with cia c.i. sees itself and i'll be very very kind of my friends we call him the cling on because they are in star trek or they're you know they're kind of like the cling on their part of the federation but they do their own thing much like you know so they they often do their own thing and they aren't necessarily in sync with d.o.d. so we take great exception and again for your audience to understand my book operation dark heart operation dark heart was going to be done without c.i.'s knowledge we were just going to do it and do it do it under under d.o.d.'s authority so again this is not the first time we'll be the last time that there's conflict and frankly as a deal the case officer we have done a number of things to work around them and again partnering with the f.b.i.

has been one of those options as well it's interesting too when we talk about these two factions i mean this is already been approved by secretary of defense leon panetta as well right former cia director david petraeus let's not forget me and said that it used to be the director of the cia i mean do you think that this fostered sort of a greater desire to carry over his own tracks so to speak to his new position i don't know i think there's been talk from day get from ninety five of actually consolidating everything into a single services basic calling it the national clandestine service for obvious reasons because of the gravity of of law because of title ten versus title fifty you know he's never signed up for that duty always feels or sayings of duty must do on its own let's remember also n.s.a. national security agency is a deity organization we also work very closely with the n.s.a. as the cia but again it's different and often there's been conflict as i mentioned before where we've worked with the idea of work with. with the other folks relating to see if f.b.i.

folks relating to the issues. that are simply titled can like and so there's always going to be conflict and felt people can actually work out their differences and find a way to actually cooperate cooperation is never an easy thing to do yeah i think. it's a good point though certainly surprising that this has been made public i think a lot of those criticisms that it's yet another organization of intelligence officers out there kind of valid but since it is out there we figured we'd talk about it tony shaffer director for external communications at the center for advanced defense studies thanks so much for your brother now on to a story that we continue to cover u.s. sanctions in iran late last week the u.s. senate voted to increase sanctions imposing new penalties on any foreign businesses and banks that have ties to iran's ports shipping shipbuilding for energy this would bring policy one step closer to a total trade embargo on iran now these sanctions were added by the senate to the annual defense authorization bill and i should mention that still needs to be voted

on by the house of representatives and signed into law by the president to talk about these sanctions and also u.s. policy in iran i was joined by jamal object policy director for the national iranian american council we first talked about this split between the white house and the senate on the increase sanctions. well i would i wouldn't call it a clash it was a very quiet confrontation if anything this was a sanctions package that was proposed initially as a total embargo sort of the last step in this sentients dance that we've seen over the past couple years the last step before when they were full exhaustion of the sanctions and what's left but you know potentially a naval blockade to enforce a total embargo that's of course an act of war there's also talk of you know this spring or summer being israel's last point before they actually go in and strike a so-called red line the so-called red line we've heard the red line articulated many times in the past but you know there's indications that this is the most

serious of the red lines that have been drawn but the point is that the supporters of the same ones have articulated this as being sort of a race to the end with iran that we need to escalate our stations towards a full embargo before they can race to become quote unquote nuclear capable which is very unclear term and so what happened was the you know the supporters of this did not get everything that they wanted they didn't get the total embargo but they still did manage to ratchet up the sanctions this is the third time in just the past calendar year that they've managed to do this and the white house is understandably frustrated by this because we are now in a period where we are supposedly going to enter negotiations and where you know the u.s. election cycle has ended we have a brief period of time before march when the iranian election cycle begins and they're unable to do anything diplomatically and so we have this brief window where we need to have serious talks and there's a sense that congress is interfering in sort of undermining the president's

flexibility by passing yet another round of sanctions that are potentially going to upset some of the united states allies in this process and that's what i want to talk to you about because this is not a direct action on iran this is a direct action on anyone who does business with iran so obviously in the long run who does that hurt the most it hurts iran by. and what about some of these other countries who would be penalize for doing business with iran i mean what what are you hearing is there a reaction i think there's concern about these measures that every time we've seen this in the past there's been this concern for instance you know these sanctions are really going to hit potentially turkey pretty hard because turkey depends on iran for its gas right now they've worked out some arrangements where they're essentially bartering through the use of gold for iran to continue to sell gas to turkey if this gets cut off it's unclear what what turkey can do and so i think my sense is that with the administration would like is for more waivers in these sanctions to give them at the very least some flexibility with our allies to say

you know we are actually partners in this we're not you know we're not going into an economic war with you well an example right now a way of i think it is you know china obviously does business with iran and the u.s. has not you know imposed major penalties on china for that right exactly and those were built in because the administration did sort of take on congress last december with central bank sanctions and managed to win some very short term temporary waivers that they couldn't force sort of at their discretion the real issue the fundamental issue here though is that the administration doesn't have a waiver to use at the table with iran per se there's there's a lack of clarity about what iran would have to do in order to get the u.s. to be able to lift the sanctions or suspend that and so there is a lack of confidence i think every time these sanctions get passed that the sanctions are actually going to be used as leverage rather than just sort of step

by step incremental approach towards confrontation and jamal when we talk about sanctions it's really interesting because this is sort of seen as a nonviolent alternative to any sort of military violence and its sense of the american people as a way to show that we're. tough but it doesn't actually physically hurt anyone but that's not really the whole story is that it's definitely not the whole story we're seeing now reports. there's a young iranian kid who died because he couldn't get medicine for hemophilia treatment and we're hearing about these increased shortages of medicine in iran because the sanctions are cutting off those imports so this is having real real effects now this is a problem that the drafters of these new sanctions took into account they acknowledge that they exist but instead of actually taking action to make sure that our sanctions aren't cutting off medical exports to iran and so they said well

we're going to demand the president give us a report about who is diverting these medical goods from iranians no it's fantastic if that's what we need to get to the bottom of this but at the end of the day if that report actually comes through you know if it names iranian officials great let's make sure that's not happening but we do know that the sanctions are going to be our main culprit of this and we're going to have to look in the mirror and say ok now what we what can we do to make sure that we're actually not the ones who are responsible for you know ordinary iranians dying because of lack of access to basic medicine yeah absolutely yes especially when it comes to people there let's switch gears a little bit because these sanctions aren't the only sort of new policy there is an article in the wall street journal that talked about the increased use of surveillance drones by the u.s. over iran talk about the impact that that has well we heard a few weeks ago about a drone that was actually shot at by iranian jets this was understandably area for

concern we know that the u.s. apparently has escalating these these drone flights and the iranians have complained to the u.s. that these flights are violating iran's territory the u.s. denies that but we also know that. you know i think it was last year or so. months ago a spy drone is actually shot down inside of iraq we also there have been reports of real cloak and dagger type stuff going on inside of iran where you've had street signs replaced by cameras and and monitoring devices by the u.s. and its intelligence assets inside of iran so there seems to be a pretty thick blanket of surveillance over iran but the problem here is that i mean for one it really doesn't do a whole lot to bolster confidence or trust between the two countries and two there is a need for more oversight and surveillance but it has to be done in a legal fashion and there is a legal basis with which to do that and that's the international the i.a.e.a.

the u.n. nuclear monitoring agency and what we should be doing hopefully if we can get these talks started is to work on an end game that involves greater legal inspections by the i.a.e.a. that iran excepts that can give the u.s. and its partners assurance that iran is not moving towards a nuclear weapon and gives iran it's in title meant to domestic enrichment but wasn't this sort of the process before i mean why isn't this something that can be working this is something they could be working if we're actually if we're actually having these negotiations and i think there's a lack of clarity about what is our and goal can we arrive at a point where inspections are robust enough that we can be assured that there isn't a problem here we can actually put this issue to rest certainly lots to consider and some interesting in developments here policy director for the national iranian american council thank senators well that is going to do it for us for this evening but for more on the stories we covered.